U.S. Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas pledged Wednesday that the “vast majority” of thousands of migrants looking to surge into the United States along its southwestern border with Mexico in coming days would be quickly expelled.
“This is what will happen: You will be returned,” Mayorkas said a day ahead of the end of a migration policy that banned entry into the U.S. because of fears of the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, but in practice allowed migrants to try again and again without consequences to illegally enter the U.S.
Under the new tougher policy, Mayorkas said migrants who enter illegally and are expelled will be banned for five years from trying to gain legal entry. Some border analysts say about 150,000 people are waiting in northern Mexico to try to enter the U.S.
“Our border is not open,” Mayorkas told a Washington news conference. He said there will be “very limited” chances for migrants to gain asylum in the U.S.
“We are a nation of immigrants,” he said. “We also are a nation of laws.”
He said the U.S. “desperately needs [immigration] legislative reform,” but Congress has been gridlocked for years on just what changes to migration laws should be enacted. Broadly speaking, Democratic lawmakers favor changes to foster immigration, while Republicans have taken a tougher stance to inhibit the surge of migrants into the U.S.
Campaigning for the presidency in 2020, President Joe Biden said he would adopt a more compassionate stance on immigration than former President Donald Trump, who only partially completed a border wall he often erroneously claimed Mexico would pay for.
But now, with the surge of migrants and chaos at the border, the Democrat Biden has kept in place some versions of the Republican Trump-era policies. The ensuing result, though, is that Biden’s immigration policies have been attacked by lawmakers from both parties. Not tough enough, some Republicans are saying, while some Democrats are saying they are inhibiting asylum efforts.
Title 42, the coronavirus restriction employed to keep migrants from entering the U.S., expires Thursday at midnight.
One senior immigration administration told reporters on condition of anonymity that the Biden administration “is implementing a comprehensive, multi-agency, multi-country plan rooted in enforcement, deterrence, and diplomacy to humanely manage the border with the lift of Title 42.”
And just as when then-President Trump invoked the public health measure, immigration advocates have said they will sue to block the new policies.
The International Refugee Assistance Project, or IRAP, issued a statement strongly opposing all policies aimed at restricting the ability of people to access their legal right to seek safety in the U.S.
“The Biden administration should be ashamed of pursuing Trump-era policies to unjustly deny protection to people seeking safety in the United States and return them to danger,” said Laurie Ball Cooper, IRAP’s U.S. legal director. “The administration must immediately rescind this harmful and illegal rule.”
Jonathan Blazer, director of border strategies at the American Civil Liberties Union, said, “President Biden just ushered in a new period of immense suffering for people already enduring violence and persecution. He has closed off the possibility of asylum in the United States to the majority of people seeking safety – in contradiction with our nation's laws and values. In doing so, he is finishing Trump’s job rather than fulfilling his own campaign promises. This is a somber day for our country and for refugees in desperate search of safety, but the fight is far from over.”
What is the new rule?
Under the policy changes, migrants crossing between ports of entry would be quickly removed through a process known as expedited removal under Title 8, the U.S. authority that covers immigration, and would therefore be ineligible for asylum unless they can prove they first requested protection in another country and were denied.
However, those who are able to schedule an appointment through CBPOne, a mobile app launched by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in October 2020, will not be blocked from asylum protections.
Migrants with exceptionally compelling circumstances, an acute medical emergency, or who are victims of "a severe form of human trafficking,” or face an "imminent and extreme threat" in Mexico will not be barred under the new asylum restrictions, administration officials said.
The new rule is not expected to apply to unaccompanied children.
Those who meet the exemptions will be interviewed under an increased security standard that is expected to result in more rejections than the usual credible fear interviews.
The credible fear interview is an initial screening where immigrants must show there is a compelling chance they will be persecuted or can demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution in their home country. Migrants who cannot pass the new security standard will be deported from the U.S. and barred for five years.
“We are also significantly expanding, starting on Thursday, the use of expedited removal at the border. … We have spent much of the last year building out additional interview rooms and adding phone lines to both [Customs and Border Protection] and [Immigration Customs Enforcement] facilities in order to facilitate the interviews that are required under the expedited removal process for asylum officers,” according to a senior Biden official.
U.S. immigration official told reporters that about 1,000 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service asylum officers were deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border to handle credible fear interviews starting Thursday.
“We have more than 24,000 law enforcement personnel deployed to the border, along with another 1,100 new border patrol processing coordinators, which is double the number we had last year,” the Biden official said during the call.
New rule justification
According to border officials, unauthorized crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border reached more than 8,700 a day in the past three days. In March, the daily average was 5,000 encounters.
The officials also said that without the new rule, encounters could average 13,000 after Title 42 is lifted.
The new rule was described by officials as a continuation of the extended multilateral effort to manage migration in the region, as they encourage migrants to enter the country through legally available channels such as CBPOne and a sponsorship parole program that each month allows legal travel to the U.S. after proper vetting for up to 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who have a U.S. citizen or legal resident to sponsor them.
